This invention relates to gun ammunition projectiles and particularly to frangible projectiles and more particularly to frangible projectiles for use in pistol or rifle ammunition.
In the art there exists a major concern relating to the danger associated with ricocheting projectiles fired from guns, especially from pistols and rifles of 50 caliber or smaller calibers. Major litigation has arisen seeking monetary recovery from law enforcement officers and/or governmental agencies as compensation from injury to a bystander or other innocent person struck by a ricocheting projectile or portion of a projectile. Also importantly, ricocheting projectiles are a very present danger to fellow law enforcement officers when gunfire erupts within a closed area, such as border patrol officers inspecting the holds of ships for contraband, etc. Further, training of law enforcement officers commonly includes participating in exercises which include entry into a xe2x80x9calive fire housexe2x80x9d. These exercises involve rapid entry by a number of officers into a xe2x80x9clive fire housexe2x80x9d training building and live firing of weapons at designated targets within the building. The presence of several officers within the enclosure, each of which may be firing their weapon, generates a real danger of injury of an officer by reason of their being struck by a ricocheting portion or all of a projectile.
Projectiles of the prior art have almost exclusively included a lead core, either with or without an outer covering of the core. In either event, lead has been recognized as an environmental pollutant and is now either banned or being considered for banning, in most projectiles. Moreover, lead projectile tend to ricochet from many surfaces which have a hardness on the order of a hardwood.
To solve both the environmental concerns and the ricochet tendency of lead projectiles, there have been developed projectiles formed from a combination of materials which are collectively frangible when the projectile strikes a target. In those instances where these newer projectiles include a core which is housed within a metal, usually copper, jacket, the frangibility of the jacket is of concern. This is particularly true when the projectile strikes a surface having a hardness on the order of mild steel or harder. Under these latter conditions, fragments of the jacket may ricochet off the hard target and become independent small projectiles which can be injurious to an unintended target, such as a bystander or even the shooter. Depending upon various factors such as distance, outerwear protection, size of fragment, etc., such fragments can be lethal.
The present invention comprises a frangible projectile for gun ammunition wherein the projectile includes a core formed from one or more metal powders which are pressed into a self-supporting compact and incorporated into a metal jacket. The metal jacket is initially cup-shaped (generally cylindrical in overall geometry) with an open end and a closed end. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention the closed end of the jacket becomes the trailing end of the projectile. In another embodiment, the closed end of the jacket becomes the leading end of the projectile. In either embodiment, that surface of the closed end of the jacket which faces inwardly of the volume of the jacket is indented and stressed over substantially its entire area in accordance with a pattern which enhances the frangibility of this closed end of the projectile when the projectile strikes a target. In either embodiment, upon the projectile of the present invention striking a relatively hard target, the initially closed end of the jacket, which now has been indented and stressed, disintegrates into minute particulates, each of which loses its momentum rapidly such that these particulates fall harmless away from the target.